This is the banana bread recipe you have been waiting for, whether you know it or not! (Good) pictures by the fabulously talented and extremely generous Kristland Damazo - check her out https://www.kristlandlee.com
At one point in college I lived with 4 other girls, and then 3. As well as 3-7 guys? (I don't know their number was always changing) in a duplex, known as The Nuplex or The Nupe for short, it's the big green house in the pictures below. In the few years we lived together, we laughed, cried, and were maybe sometimes mad or annoyed with one another. We attended weddings, baby showers, and funerals. Sometimes we watched crappy reality TV, other times we watched the news and Olympics. They graciously allowed me to decorate for Christmas, and when I say decorate I mean DEC-OR-ATE, (the picture below does not do it ANY justice; it was, sadly, the only one I could find). I believe Julie once said "It looks like Santa threw up here" and I was cleaning up glitter well after Christmas. We lived life fully, learning about each other and probably more about ourselves. And we said "duh" a lot!
Those years are some of my most favorite, and probably will be for the rest of my life. I am forever thankful to my roomgirls, and love them dearly, duh.
Those years are some of my most favorite, and probably will be for the rest of my life. I am forever thankful to my roomgirls, and love them dearly, duh.
One of the benefits to living with that many people, who all went grocery shopping on their own, is bananas. Whenever bananas were beyond their enjoyable eating point I would tell my roommates to put them in the freezer. And when our freezer was stocked with bananas, muffins I would make, dozens of them. Every time I make banana bread I think of my time at The Nupe, the recipe has been adapted, for the better, since then. I use more bananas and brown butter (along with some other changes) resulting in a moister and slightly nutty banana bread. I hope you enjoy this recipe as it holds many memories near and dear to my heart.
Ingredients:
1 stick of unsalted brown butter (or just melted)
1 1/2 cups of flour
1 1/2 tsp of baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
2 Tbs cocoa powder
1 tsp salt
4 bananas (3 will work too if you don't have 4)
2/3 cup of sugar
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup of chocolate chips
3/4 cup of walnuts
Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.
Melt butter, if using brown butter, which I highly recommend. Keep butter on heat after melted until the milk solids turn into little brown bits in your pan. Set aside to cool a little bit while preparing other ingredients.
Mix together: flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa powder, and salt.
In another bowl combine bananas and sugar. Mash bananas with a fork. The sugar will help the breakdown bananas. Add in the egg, vanilla extract and butter. Mix all wet ingredients together.
Add wet ingredients to the dry ones and stir until just combined. Add in chocolate chips and walnuts, stir again. Pour batter into one prepared (either lined with parchment paper, buttered and floured or prayed with baking spray) loaf pan.
Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Enjoy!
Notes:
This recipe is very easy to adjust and play around with. I love chocolate, but if you are not a chocolate person leave out the cocoa powder and chocolate chips. Or if you don't like nuts take them out. Or use peanut butter chips instead of chocolate.
Add cinnamon or instant espresso powder if you want. Or you can sub half of the bananas for 1 cup of pumpkin puree.
If your bananas are super ripe you may want to cut back on the amount of sugar to it won't be too sweet.
You can also make muffins instead of bread, bake time would be about 25 minutes. Or split the batter into 2 loaf pans and shorten cooking time.
1 stick of unsalted brown butter (or just melted)
1 1/2 cups of flour
1 1/2 tsp of baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
2 Tbs cocoa powder
1 tsp salt
4 bananas (3 will work too if you don't have 4)
2/3 cup of sugar
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup of chocolate chips
3/4 cup of walnuts
Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.
Melt butter, if using brown butter, which I highly recommend. Keep butter on heat after melted until the milk solids turn into little brown bits in your pan. Set aside to cool a little bit while preparing other ingredients.
Mix together: flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa powder, and salt.
In another bowl combine bananas and sugar. Mash bananas with a fork. The sugar will help the breakdown bananas. Add in the egg, vanilla extract and butter. Mix all wet ingredients together.
Add wet ingredients to the dry ones and stir until just combined. Add in chocolate chips and walnuts, stir again. Pour batter into one prepared (either lined with parchment paper, buttered and floured or prayed with baking spray) loaf pan.
Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Enjoy!
Notes:
This recipe is very easy to adjust and play around with. I love chocolate, but if you are not a chocolate person leave out the cocoa powder and chocolate chips. Or if you don't like nuts take them out. Or use peanut butter chips instead of chocolate.
Add cinnamon or instant espresso powder if you want. Or you can sub half of the bananas for 1 cup of pumpkin puree.
If your bananas are super ripe you may want to cut back on the amount of sugar to it won't be too sweet.
You can also make muffins instead of bread, bake time would be about 25 minutes. Or split the batter into 2 loaf pans and shorten cooking time.
First make brown butter. This is extremely simply - put butter in a pan, turn heat on the stove, allow butter to melt, and continue heating until there are brown bits in the pan. The brown bits are toasted milk solids in the butter. Once your butter starts to brown make sure to keep a close eye on it, it can quickly go from browned to burnt. Turn off heat and set butter aside to cool while you prepare other ingredients.
Mix the dry ingredients, flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa powder and salt, together in a bowl.
In another bowl, put the bananas and sugar.
Mash together with a fork. I like to put the bananas and sugar together, especially if the bananas are not overripe, the coarse sugar helps the break down the bananas.
To the bananas add egg, vanilla and butter. Mix all together.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry.
And mix until it is combined.
Add the chocolate chops and nuts and give one final mix until they are distributed throughout the batter.
Pour batter into a prepared loaf pan. I like to use parchment paper and allow it to be bigger than the pan because it is easier to pull out of the pan and I think it looks pretty. If you are not using parchment paper and allowing it to hang above the edges split batter into two pans, because it does rise, and I would not want it to spill over. If making muffins, fill the tins about 3/4 of the way.
Into the oven it goes, 375 for an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Once it is done, allow to cool completely - or almost completely before slicing. Look at those melty chips, yum!
And because I couldn't resist here is one more picture, enjoy my friends!